


writing it down

by slavetohiscat



Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types, History Boys - Bennett
Genre: Ellided Sex Scenes, Epistolary, Future Fic, Gratuitous Literary Quotations, M/M, Oxford, Romance, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:19:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slavetohiscat/pseuds/slavetohiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scripps' diary of his first term at Oxford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	writing it down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forochel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/gifts).



> Dear forochel, Have a lovely festive period and may your new year be full of shiny! :-)

> St Johns College, Oxford
> 
> Sunday, 7th October
> 
> Dear Mum,
> 
> Thank you for your letter. Did you send it before I left so it would be here waiting for me?
> 
> We all have individual pigeon holes in the lodge—my label reads "Mr Scripps". Thought that would amuse you. The porters call me Mr Scripps too, but don't worry I won't come home with airs and graces. Or at least, I apologise in advance for when I do.
> 
> The lift up with the Lockwoods was fine, if a bit slow. Timms joked that at least it was faster than James's milk float, but that didn't really make up for the fact I've been irreparably flattened by his suitcase. Everyone was in very high spirits, even Mr Lockwood who(m?) I don't think I've ever seen smile before. There was much talk of Hector's boys' reunions every few weeks. Hector's boys _contra mundum_ , are we not? (Dakin has just finished _Brideshead_ and seems to think he's going to marry a duchess and become a peer.)
> 
> Missing your cooking already (and you and Dad too, of course).
> 
> Love,
> 
> Donald
> 
> P.S.: It's always "up" to Oxford, even if you come from "the North".

*

If found, please return to Donald Thomas Scripps, St John’s College, Oxford, The South, Britain.

*

**Tuesday, 9th October**

All the boys here wear these awful tweed suits that make them look like children playing with daddy's dressing up box. I was seated with a crowd of these public-school boys at the Freshers' Feast on Sunday evening, and I thought that they really weren't as bad as everyone at home makes them out to be. But the next morning at breakfast, and at lunch, and again today, whenever I talk to any of them it's like they're meeting me for the first time. They have no memory of me from occasion to occasion.

The girls are better. One, called Conceptua (can you imagine?), said to me she'd always wanted to be "the very best of friends" with "a rough-and-tumble Northerner". Not sure this qualifies as flirting or not, but I wrote a postcard to Stuart claiming that it does.

No word from any of the Sheffield boys yet. James is here at John’s but he's already thick as thieves with his army friends. I've found what appears to be an abandoned music practice room at the bottom of my staircase. Really getting to grips with the _Well-Tempered Clavier_.

St Johns is even more beautiful than I remembered it from interviews. My rooms are on the Library Quad, overlooking the gardens. The plants are largely dead this late into the winter, of course, but something about the austere facade of the College under all that dormant ivy appeals to me. I feel like a ghost wandering around under the stone archways. O in these quadrangles where Wisdom honours herself / Does the original stone merely echo that praise / Shallowly, or utter a bland hymn of comfort?

**Friday, 12th October**

Saw the boys at a distance at Matriculation but didn't get a chance to talk. Posner especially looks very silly in his sub fusc white tie. Everyone does, except Stuart. Much talk of tradition and history from the Chancellor, made me feel even more like a floating consciousness.

Dr Spottiswoode-Fotheringham (sic.) send me my reading list for next week yesterday. Fifteen books. Do not imagine I will have much spare time over the coming week, nor any of the others if they've got as much on as I do. Realised I've not spoken to anyone except my scout for three days, shadow without shape or sex that I am.

**Monday, 15th October**

Writing in the library because can't read any more lest my eyes fall out of my head. Also, need to think through what happened last night.

Went to Evensong in the College Chapel. I asked the Chaplain - June, a yellowing woman square of face and spherical of body - about it, but apparently the organ scholars are trained from birth in the great cathedrals of our land, so the choir has no use for me.

June served us all the most horrible sherry after the service, actually in the nave of the church, but was saved from it by the chapel warden, who had a flask of whisky in his jacket pocket. Lionel Woolly. (Only just noticed that's a silly name. Clearly slowly becoming immune to them.) He's a second-year English student from Birmingham who is writing a novel and, here's the clincher, doesn't wear tweed. Would have gone on to Hall together for dinner, but Stuart turned up suddenly and demanded to be fed. Apparently the food at Oriel is awful.

It's always good to see Stuart. He really is a force of nature: I've never been surrounded by so many swooning girls at a formal dinner. He's bought one of those deadly tweed suits to wear under his gown and has started elongating his vowels, but soon dropped that act when he realised Consty prefers her Northern men to be rough-and-tumble. Oriel's an all-male college so apparently he'll be spending a lot more time here now. This possibility caused much excitement among Consty and her friends. I like the idea of him dating someone at John’s. It's always good to see Stuart.

He stayed far too late, reciting Auden and drinking one of the girl's port. Apparently he hasn't even started his reading but of course he thinks he'll get away with it. Anyway, he got locked in to College by the porters. There was a moment where it looked like he'd go back to Consty's room, but he ended up topping and tailing with me, hopping in on top of me practically naked like that wasn't embarrassing at all.

"Those pyjamas are ridiculous," he said. "I can't sleep with a man wearing a night cap."

"Feel free to curl up on the chaise longue."

"You're much more comfortable."

We scuffled. As always with Stuart it was a losing battle and my clothes ended up under the bed with me on top of it.

"Thanks for dinner. I'd invite you to hall at Oriel," he said, "but the food's toxic. How should I repay you? A box of Black Magic?"

I retreated under the covers. It seems so genuine when he fixes you with his eyes like that, but you know what he's like: give an inch and suddenly you're the new Posner. I was probably imagining the unspoken "On my knees?" anyway. It was my inference, not his implication...

When I woke up he was already gone.

Met Lionel at breakfast and he's brought me to his secret corner of the library. It's by the only window in here that opens, so you can actually breathe here. After an hour or so of reading, he plucked Boredwell 1981 from my hands. "Are you actually reading this?" he said, grinning widely. "Just look up the bits relevant to your essay in the index for God's sake."

"Knowledge doesn't have to be useful to be worth having."

"If you still think that after a whole term of twenty books a week, I will hire you as my research assistant."

It's a tempting prospect. The index method, that is, not working for Lionel. I'm tired after last night and don't have much enthusiasm for Boredwell and his medieval history chums. (Sleeping naked next to Stuart Dakin without embarrassing oneself is, unsurprisingly, not very restful.)

**Friday, 19th October**

First tutorial with Dr Spottiswoode-Fotheringham (sic.). It did not go well. Lionel accosted me immediately outside and took me to the Eagle and Child to commiserate. Apparently he had sensed my agony though the walls of Dr Sic's study. Will be using the index method next week. Lesson learned.

**Sunday, 21st October**

Met Posner and Akhtar for tea and toast in Posner’s room at Magdolen, which are right next to a sign pointing towards The Oscar Wilde Room, which rather amused me. He's singing in the Queen's College choir, which Lionel says is a very prestigious one, if not quite Magdalen itself. I asked him if he’d met anyone nice, and he answered frankly, stirring his Earl Grey with unnecessary force. “He winks at me across the lecture theatre but I don’t bother trying to talk to him.” Poor old Posner, always given just enough to keep his futile hope burning.

Couldn’t be more of a contrast with Lionel. We meet at breakfast every day Monday to Friday, then proceed to the library for a morning’s reading. I work better when he’s there, he has a solidity about him. And the most wonderful deep blue eyes I can look into when I get tired of index trawling... Off to Chapel then formal hall with him in a few minutes, in fact.

**Thursday, 25th October**

Stuart is a bloody force of nature. He found me in the Rad Cam, minding my own business with a couple of journals on the history of the Church, and practically frogmarched me out to go to this pub he’s discovered about half a mile up the Isis. He bought me a tankard of mead (yes, it was that sort of pub) and proceeded to get very lairy in a very short space of time. I haven't noticed before how bad he with alcohol, all red cheeks and wide eyes. You’d expect him to be more hardy given his self image. It was all very entertaining, but by his second tankard he was totally out of control.

“So have you got over our Lord and starked wanking yet?” he said. “Only I was thinking, if it’s been a while, it might be a show worth watching.”

I stared out into the bordering forest, not dignifying him with an answer. As soon as you give in, he loses interest. I’ve seen it a hundred times before: Posner, Irwin, Fiona, Consty, the list is unending.

“I’m not giving up,” he said. Luckily we were in public or I think he might have molested me then and there. I reminded him it was my essay night and went back to the Camera, only slightly worse for wear. Essay is done and it’s only 11pm, L’s index method is working.

**Tuesday, 30th October**

Came to this morning to find I was kissing my reflection in the bathroom mirror, thinking about Stuart. Not the best way to use my time, especially when I was already going to be late for the 9am lecture. (Dr Dryden really has it in for undergraduates.) S. was there of course, twinkling away at as many students as he thought he could get his teeth into. I noticed Posner sat right at the front and didn’t glance around at all. Good for him.

**Thursday, 1st November**

Thought this journal was going to be suitable for posterity. Now if I become a famous writer I’m going to have to have it burned instead. It’s too embarrassing.

After hall last night, went to the College bar with Lionel and got him all riled up about religion and literature. James Lockwood was there with his army people, but I tempted him over and we riffed off C.S. Lewis quotations like we used to at school. Had forgotten how good that was. James signed me up for the organisational committee of the Christmas Ball, which this year falls at the end of November because of the term dates. They call it Oxmas, apparently.

Remembered my recent purchase of a bottle of single malt, and used it to tempt Lionel up to my set. There was something in the air between us, and as he pushed me through the door into my bedroom thought I was going to get to kiss him at last. But I hadn’t factored Stuart “Force of Nature” Dakin into the equation.

He’d somehow broken into my set (later he told me he’s flirted outrageously with one of the scouts) and was lounging in my bed, his clothes scattered around the room and my night cap perched cheerily on his head. Both men looked affronted by the other’s presence. “What is he doing here?” I felt like a Brontë sister.

Lionel melted away pretty quickly, leaving S. looking very pleased with himself. “That looked interesting. You didn’t tell me there was someone else,” he said.

“There isn’t. Well, there might have been if you weren’t here.”

“I thought you were avoiding me for religious reasons.”

“So you thought you’d despoil me now, did you? Break into my set like Casanova into a convent.”

“Pretty much, yes. And now you don’t even have God as an excuse,” he crowed. Smugness doesn’t suit anybody, least of all obnoxious brunettes.

“Oh, get dressed,” I snapped at him.

Last time I had Stuart naked in my bedroom, I hadn’t really gotten a good look at him. Something I’d regretted in my weaker moments. This time was too irritated to think to look away as he tore off my bedsheet and started to gather up his clothing.

“I’m serious about you, you know,” said Stuart, back turned, pulling on his stupid tweed trousers without bothering to put on underdrawers. “And you look like you have a severe case of the Tudor Economic Documents.”

And that, dear horrified literary scholars of the future, is how I came to be demoted from potential man of the cloth to confirmed sinner. It was worth it, believe me.

**Friday 2nd November**

No word from Stuart. No surprise from me. Have decided not to look back, but keep thinking about how I leant in the doorway of the shower, watching him while he washed his hair, and how that's the last time I ever saw him naked.

Continuing mastery of the undergraduate essay means I have more time for piano practice. Have moved on to Book II of _The Well-Tempered Clavier_.

**Monday 5th November**

No word from Stuart. Went to Evensong, formal hall. The fuzziness in the air between Lionel and me has returned with a vengeance. He's started sitting with one leg outstretched against mine so that we're always in contact. Back in my set I put on an Ella Fitzgerald record, and we lay on my bed to listen to it, and forgot all about Stuart, and it was great—until Bewitched started playing. Got depressed and pretended to fall asleep to get rid of L. without having to ask him to leave.

**Wednesday 7th November**

No word from Stuart. Turned up at Posner's set uninvited last night. Obviously didn't tell him what happened between you know who and me, but he sensed an increased kinship with me, I think.

Pos's really not a bad sort. He keeps good whisky under the bed, for a start, though told him he shouldn't drink because it's bad for his singing voice. Questioning my medical credentials, he dragged me off to Magdalen chapel to prove to me whisky actually improves the singing voice. Broke into the organ loft and howled loudly together until the porters came and chased us away. Not convinced whisky is good for the voice—nor is a church organ the best accompaniment to Gracie Fields—but it does make singing more fun.

**Friday 9th November**

_My name is Donald Thomas Scripps and I love Stuart Dakin with all my crooked heart. He is the best thing in my life, exceedingly sexy, and quite probably a genius._

Fuck off, Dakin. You can't go around reading peoples' journals, yet alone writing in them.

_I owe it to posterity to make sure the truth is recorded accurately. Besides, ghostwriting is a legitimate art form and I think I did a spectacular job of capturing your voice. There was even an Auden quote, I mean, what else could you possibly ask for?_

Here is what actually happened: yesterday, Stuart accosted me outside the Sheldonian after our European medieval culture lecture and demanded to know why I hadn't been in touch since Halloween. Obviously I wanted to know the same thing. Apparently, it was my turn to visit him so he was waiting for me.

He ended up coming back to mine, so my tally of times Stuart has been naked in my bedroom currently stands at 3.

_That's not bad going, but I have plans to raise that number in the immediate future. Donald had to run off to his tutorial with Dr Dwistleton-Fortheringsmythe or whatever he's called, so I will have to finish the story for him:_

_Stuart was amazing in the sack last night, as usual, and so this morning I, Donald Thomas Scripps, promised not to ignore him for more than a week for no reason again, to wear my electric blue jumper in his presence at least once a week, and to allow him unfettered and unlimited access to my boudoir. Then rushed through writing my essay in about half an hour and went off to my tutorial without having so much as brushing my teeth._

**Saturday 17th November**

Have moved this book to the music room so Stuart doesn't know where it is any more. Not written for ages. Apparently only think to do so when I'm miserable. And I wonder why Stuart thinks all literature is consolation.

Preparations for the Christmas ball are now well underway. James has somehow conspired to use my set as a store room, so it is currelty brimming with the most awful seasonal plastic greenery. Stuart stole a bunch of mistletoe yesterday and ran around chasing me with it all morning. Nonetheless, managed to get a respectable amount of reading done and send invitations out to all of Hector's old boys. I haven't haven't so much as spoken to Timms or Rudge all term.

**Wednesday, 21st November**

Should never have agreed to help organise this ball. Suspect I might be the only person on the committee doing any work.

In more happy news, Stuart's essay marks have been going up since he started studying with me. Panache isn't enough once you get in, you see, there's supposed to be an element of truth in what you write. I’ve always felt he thrived on being desired, but I never understood how rewarding it would be to let him take it from me.

Christ, sound like Hardy after too much sherry. Someone stop me.

**Monday, 26th November**

Confirming my suspicions that this journal will turn into a record of all the times I have been miserable, today's entry is going to be quite long.

It began on Saturday, when I stopped eating in preparation for the Ball, or rather in preparation for what I planned to do with Stuart after it ended. The ball part, at least, went well.

The plastic holly and mistletoe looked much less tacky when it was actually up in the quads with people milling around below it. Consty presented me with a woollen scarf to help me "brave the Northern winter", which I wore all night. Managed to tear Timms away from the hog roast so all the Sheffield boys could pose together for a photo. I try not to smile too widely in photographs in order to look literary for posterity, but with Stuart's hand on the small of my back how could I not?

Posner was very pleasant, I thought, considering. Maybe he knew something. Tried not to let Stuart be too hands on with me in front of him, but he is, as discussed, a bastard force of nature.

We were queuing for some more mead (I ordered a whole bloody barrel because I knew he would like it). I was talking to Akhtar, Stuart to some historian from another college with an ugly perm, when all of a sudden she slapped him round the face and stalked off. "You don't even remember who I am, do you?" she screamed. Lockwood, Timms and Posner cheered her on, but I heard them as though at a distance. Plebian imbeciles.

"What was that about?" I asked jokingly, but I already knew from his expression what it was, who she was. Slipped away into the crowd before he could answer.

It was Posner's smirk as I left that made me angry. Being angry at Stuart is like being angry at a hurricane. Didn't I know he would do this? Didn't I avoid letting him have me for this very reason? No, I'm not angry at him. Or Posner, the poor lad. Not right now, anyway, but at the time I was pretty damn displeased.

Found Lionel in the crowd under a wreath of mistletoe and pinned him against the pillar. "You look great in black tie," he said, which I took as invitation enough to lean in and kiss him. He froze almost immediately, eyes wide, staring at something over my shoulder.

Oh, the Brontë sisters had a hand in the events of last night, alright. Stuart was there, already turning away into the crowd, but I caught a glimpse of his face and I've never seen him look so unhappy before. Not even when Hector died.

Now he knows how I feel.

Then Lionel pushed me away from him and said, “Donald, I appreciate that you’re rather drunk so we’ll say no more about this, but don’t involve me in your sodomite shenanigans again, there’s a good chap. Consty and I are getting serious, you know.”

At the time just wandered away in a daze, his words undigested. But now I look back on our friendship, for that’s what it was, and see him simply as an unusually tactile drunk. He was tactile with all of his friends, but I felt what I wanted to feel.

And Consty? How did I not know she’d gone for the only other Northerner in St Johns? And supposedly my best friend at that? Must have missed a lot.

So hungover today I can't even play the piano. It sounds like church bells smashing down a rocky cliff.

**Wednesday, 28th November**

Am learning Chopin etudes. Here in the music room is the only place I can go where I’m not reminded constantly of him, and how I knew all along I could never keep him for myself, how he could never be contained by anyone.

The nightingales are sobbing in / the orchards of our mothers, / and hearts that we broke long ago / have long been breaking others.

I hate Hector for teaching me that. It stops me from finding my own words.

**Thursday, 29th November**

Apologised to Lionel for trying to kiss him at the ball. Apologised to Consty for trying to kiss her boyfriend at the ball. She said she rather liked the idea, but ran away before she could qualify what exactly she meant by that.

Went to James’s room to confirm that my parents are giving him a lift back home for the Christmas holidays. He sent me away to Oriel, telling me I was delaying the inevitable.

I went to Stuart’s room, but he wasn’t in. Snuck in to the library and found an anthology of poetry to read, but fell asleep slumped up against his door while I was waiting for him to come back.

Woke up with Stuart’s foot in my ribs. “I don’t really want to talk to you,” he said, but he let me into his room anyway. I stood there in silence for a full five minutes, watching him fold his clothes with uncharacteristic neatness and placing them carefully into his open suitcase. I have grown to love that awful tweet suit.

“Go on then,” he said eventually.

“Go on, what?”

“I’m waiting for you to apologise so I can kick you out.”

I felt my anger as physical presence behind my eyes. “You’re waiting for me to apologise for the time you slept with someone else? How typical of you not only to have forgotten her name but to blame me for your infidelity.”

“But I am blame for yours?” He was looking at me with that awful funeral look again. “All this time, you’ve been keeping Lionel in the wings, just waiting for me to trip up. And you were so quick to believe that I had. You were expecting me to fail.”

I sank onto his floor, head in hands and headache on the horizon.

“I did sleep with that girl,” he continued, “but it was in Freshers’ Week. Before you and I kissed. But you didn’t give me time to explain, did you? You’d already decided I would hurt you like that.”

“But why,” I moaned, “why don’t you remember her name? Any of their names? Do you even know Posner’s first name?”

“I remember your name.”

My looming headache kicked in then. Apologised, told him I loved him. He said it was fine, that he forgave me. But it didn’t ring true. Left him to his packing and moped off back to St Johns to lick my wounds.

At least I understand now, even if I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.

**Friday 30th November**

My name is Donald Thomas Scripps and I love Stuart James Dakin with all my crooked heart. He is the best thing in my life, exceedingly sexy, and definitely a genius.

I hereby promise not to ignore him for more than a week for no reason, to wear my electric-blue jumper in his presence at least once a week (you missed the compound adjective the first time around, S.), and to allow him unfettered and unlimited access to my boudoir (unless I have to write an essay), and to give him the benefit of the doubt, always.

_I, the undersigned, also promise to always share my reading notes, not to complain if someone borrows my gown and totally reasonably doesn’t return it for a couple of days, and to obey Master Dakin without question in all matters._

You’re pushing your luck there, Stu.

_Witnessed on 30th November by StuART J. Dakin._

Signed, Donald Thomas Scripps.

*

> St Johns College, Oxford
> 
> Saturday 31st November
> 
> Dear Mum,
> 
> I will be seeing you in mere hours, but I need to send a parcel of books home so I might as well write you a note while I’m about it. I haven’t picked up any airs and graces, but I did pick up a boyfriend who(m?) I’ll be introducing you to this holiday. You like him.
> 
> Begging to remain your most humble and faithful servant, your loving son and heir,
> 
> D. T. Scripps, Esq.
> 
> P.S.: Maybe I did pick up a few airs and graces.
> 
> P.P.S.: Can’t wait to eat your food again. Fois gras (sp?) ain’t got nothing on one of your fry ups.


End file.
